Milestones: Aug. 2, 1963

Married. Mamie Spears Reynolds, 20, daughter of North Carolina’s late Senator Robert Reynolds, who at four inherited $10 million from her grandmother Evalyn Walsh McLean;* and Luigi Chinetti Jr., 20, partner with his father, a onetime auto racer, in the U.S. Ferrari franchise; in Manhattan.

Died. Bernard Hamilton Stauffer, 63, founder of Stauffer Laboratories, and developer (in 1938) of the first big-time reducing machines, who parleyed his jiggling “Magic Couches” into a nationwide chain of 250 franchised salons before the Federal Trade Commission charged in 1960 that his machines “were of no value in reducing weight,” after which business suffered a sharp decline; of a heart attack; in San Gabriel, Calif.

Died. George Whitney, 77, financier, knowledgeable partner of J. P. Morgan between the wars and first president of J. P. Morgan, Inc. from 1940 to 1950, a polished Bostonian who came out of investigations into the stock market crash with a clean slate (unlike his brother Richard, former president of the Stock Exchange, who was convicted of embezzlement), after World War II started Morgan on diversification that led to its 1959 merger with Guaranty Trust; of a pulmonary emphysema (see MEDICINE); in Manhattan.

Died. Louis Fabian Bachrach, 82, master photographer for 40 years (1915-55) as head of Bachrach, Inc., the nation’s premier portrait firm (founded in 1868 by Bachrach’s father, run today by his two sons, Bradford and Louis Fabian Jr.), a student of human nature who found that the great and rich alike wanted the camera to “fill in their inadequacies,” did so with such success that he and his sons have photographed every President since Wilson; of a stroke; in Boston.

Died. Alexander Gerasimov, 82, Stalin’s favorite painter, a totally unimaginative member of the draw-it-likethey-want-it-to-look school who won just about every honor there was for his portraits of the Soviet dictator, but fell from favor in the great destalinization campaign despite his abject recantings, a switch that Western observers regarded as something akin to Whistler turning on his mother; of a heart attack; in Moscow.

* Including a share in the 44 Vicarat Hope Diamond, the historic “bad-luck” stone once worn by Marie Antoinette and supposedly possessed of an Oriental curse. Mrs. McLean’s husband bought it in Turkey in 1911; he subsequently went insane, his eldest son was killed in a car accident, while Mamie’s mother died at 25 of sleeping pills. The gem was sold in 1949 to Jeweler Harry Winston, who in turn gave it to the Smithsonian, “where,” says Mamie firmly, “it belongs.”